Suicide ?!?

The news of the loss of Robin Williams is saddening. I however can't help feeling that it is the shared delusion of a better place to go that was likely the cause. This is not a new idea as suicide to speed along the journey to "heaven" that caused the church to announce that it was a sin. Those who say religion isn't harmful if practiced alone I believe are mistaken or have never lost a loved one who was alone with their ideas of a better place. Maybe this idea is ill timed, but I have seen many instances where life was lost due to someone hoping for the promised land because their ideas were allowed to manifest unchallenged.

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Well, I believe "death" is meant in a very different sense than the French take. I believe it relates to the notion of "ego death." After all, all the Buddha demanded from the devotee was nothing less than the extinction of the ego.

I don't know what Robin Williams was feeling in those last hours of his life, and pretty obviously, no one ever will. What I DO know is that he was a stand-up man of the first water as it came to his friends. Case in point, his friendship with Christopher Reeve and in particular, something he did for the Superman star after his injury. The story is recorded as a part of an article in The Daily Beast:

After being thrown from a horse, suffering a cervical spinal injury that left him paralyzed from the neck down, Reeve was in a great deal of pain at the hospital. He even contemplated suicide. Since the accident had damaged his first and second cervical vertebrae, Reeve was forced to undergo a life-threatening surgery to reconnect his skull and his spine.

“As the day of the operation drew closer, it became more and more painful and frightening to contemplate,” wrote Reeve. “In spite of efforts to protect me from the truth, I already knew that I had only a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the surgery. I lay on my back, frozen, unable to avoid thinking the darkest thoughts. Then, at an especially bleak moment, the door flew open and in hurried a squat fellow with a blue scrub hat and a yellow surgical gown and glasses, speaking in a Russian accent. He announced that he was my proctologist, and that he had to examine me immediately. My first reaction was that either I was on way too many drugs or I was in fact brain damaged. But it was Robin Williams. He and his wife, Marsha, had materialized from who knows where. And for the first time since the accident, I laughed. My old friend had helped me know that somehow I was going to be okay.”

Loren, I read somewhere that they first became friends in college and had roomed together. After Reeves had his accident I read that Robin Williams paid all those bills. He thought Reeves might have a better chance if he didn't have that burden upon him. I don't have the link right now, but read it last night. This story can be Googled.

We may never know what happened. I saw a report that he died of asphyxiation. Maybe that was an inaccurate report. It brought to mind the death of David Carradine, who according to reports died of autoerotic asphyxiation. Out of respect for Williams, that might not be reported even if true. Asphyxiation could also indicate other causes, but I don't know. With the autopsy, I imagine they will say if drugs were present, including the often seen cocktails of opiates / tranquilizers / alcohol.

Yup - I don't know of anyone outside religious concerns who lobbied against Oregon's death with dignity law. They always think they have reason to meddle in the lives and affairs of other people, usually with goals that increase the misery of others exponentially.

There was quite a shitstorm yesterday over a Minnesota Republican functionary's insensitive tweet regarding Robin's passing:

A GOP official from Minnesota provoked angry responses – including a profane call from a fellow Republican – over politically charged comments he made online about the death of comic actor Robin Williams.

Chris Fields, deputy chair of the state’s Republican Party, responded just before 8 p.m. Thursday to a tweet by the social media director of the state’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party lamenting the beloved comedian’s passing.

.@ellencanderson how very 80's. Want an economy like we had in 80's under Reagan…Vote @Jeff4Gov tomorrow in the primary.

Other Twitter users quickly rebuked the Republican for using Williams’ passing to make political statement – including a clumsy plea to support Jeff Johnson for governor of Minnesota, reported Bluestem Prairie.

After a day-long deluge of comments trashing the dickhead Republican, this gem showed up:

Robin Williams' daughter, a class act, wrote this: "To those he touched who are sending kind words, know that one of his favorite things in the world was to make you all laugh. As for those who are sending negativity, know that some small, giggling part of him is sending a flock of pigeons to your house to poop on your car. Right after you've had it washed. After all, he loved to laugh too..."